


The Vampire of Wallonia

by Lieju



Category: Gaston (Bande Dessinée), Spirou et Fantasio
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, fixing Y&V
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 16:05:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8020318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lieju/pseuds/Lieju
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We see in album 53 that Apparently Spirou magazine ran a story about a vampire in Walloon in a city of Liège.<br/>So, what was this story we never saw?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vampire of Wallonia

 

 

Prunelle stared at the blank paper in front of him.

 

He lighted yet another pipeful, and puffed a cloud of smoke at the typewriter in some vague hopes it'd make some words materialize on the paper.

No such luck.

 

And the deadline was creeping closer.

 

He set his fingers on the keys and started. So, now he had the date at the top of the page.

Progress.

 

He bit on his pipe. How had it turned out like this?

 

The company trip to Liège had sounded like a good idea. Technically a trip for Spirou and Fantasio to check out some of it's famous folk festivals. Somehow Prunelle and Gaston had ended up going as well. He had been convinced that this trip would be worth it.

 

So he had said yes. It would be practically work, they had said. He should have never listened to Gaston. It had all gone horribly wrong.

 

He had managed to drag Gaston to an alternative movie theatre. The movie had been... interesting. Interesting in the way that the two-hour film mostly filled by images of dying flowers with a voice over reading out old letters from the second world war had definitely created an emotional response in him. Mostly boredom and envy for Gaston who had managed to fall asleep almost immediately.

 

After it had ended and Prunelle has woken the tired office boy who had thought the movie had been 'very interesting especially once the alien vampires showed up and yes I watched the whole thing and didn't fall asleep definitely'.

 

They had met up with Spirou and Fantasio who had managed to get through the festival with no complications. Apart from Fantasio taking a little detour to buy a number of puppets from the market, most of which were carried by Spirou.

 

Including one almost human sized.

 

Apart from the short quarrel between Spirou and Fantasio over whether it'd look better on their mantelpiece or in the garage out of the way, nothing had interfered with their trip.

 

Then they had decided to get some lunch, and desperately Prunelle had suggested they'd have a picnic and that Gaston could cook something.

So they had headed into a park.

 

Nothing had caught fire.

 

The food had been... maybe the pancakes had tasted slightly like burnt rubber, but it had been perfectly edible.

 

And they had made their way back on Fantasio's car. Gaston had suggested they'd get his car-shaped monstrosity for the trip, but Prunelle had shot the idea down, afraid it'd lead them being late or stranded. Something he was now regretting.

So they had made their way back, safe and sound.

Nothing of note had happened.

 

He resumed staring at the blank paper.

 

Rogntudjuu, what kind of material a perfectly peaceful trip to a nearby city was for an adventure? And why had he promised Fantasio he'd take care of writing it?

 

He glanced at the clock again, chewing on his pipe that had long ago gone out. He had two hours to get this done!

 

He started writing, hoping an inspiration would strike midway.

 

_You won't believe what happened on our office picnic to a nearby city of Liège._

 

He pulled out a tourist pamphlet for some extra information to pad the story out.

 

_As many of you know, is a major city and a municipality in Belgium. It is located in the province of the same name, Liège, of which it is the main city, and is part of the Walloon region of Belgium. On 1 January 2013, the municipality of Liège had a total population of 197,013. The metropolitan area has about 750,000 inhabitants. The city has a number of football teams, most notably Standard Liège, who have won several championships, and R.F.C. de Liège, one of the oldest football clubs in Belgium and is the most important city of the Walloon region from an economic perspective._

 

That was probably enough for an infodump.

 

_So it was a beautiful summer day that we took a trip to the city to_

 

To what? He wasn't about to admit they had decided to take a paid holiday and sort of hope something adventurous and worth writing about would happen. Maybe he could write a review of the movie he had seen. Not exactly the kind of material the readers of  _ Spirou _ were used to. He tried to think back to what Gaston had told him about his dream. It wasn't like they hadn't filled pages with descriptions of Gaston's dreams before... Quality journalism.

 

But maybe he could embellish the events a bit? It wasn't like Fantasio hadn't done that before. Prunelle was fairly certain apple cider loving aliens hadn't actually taken mycology courses from the Count.

 

So..

 

_we took a trip to the city to investigate the reports of peculiar oddly lifelike dolls._

 

That was technically true. Part of the reason Fantasio had wanted to take the trip had been to get some of the giant Liégeois puppets for his collection.

 

_Fantasio soon found the market where they were selling them, and as if pulled in by some unnatural force, was mesmerized by its dead gaze, and had to buy it, despite Spirou's objections._

 

He certainly hadn't had a rational reason for buying the ugly thing. So, killer marionettes? That sounded stupid.

 

He thought back to Gaston's dream. Vampires? Why not. The werewolf story had sold well so why not?

 

_And it soon became obvious the puppet had not just been lifelike. Or should I say unlifelike?_

_We soon noticed an odd change in Fantasio's behaviour. He started complaining he was tired._

 

Prunelle neglected to mention he had been tired of dragging the giant puppet around after Spirou refused to carry it.

 

_It was getting dark, and we had to hurry back to Brussels._

 

Now he just had to find a way to get the puppet alone with Fantasio... Or Spirou. He decided to go with Spirou. He  _ had _ been oddly grumpy lately. Something about having to wear the uniform.

 

_Suddenly the car stopped. Gaston got out, certain he could fix it. Eventually Fantasio and I got out as well, not noticing Spirou stayed inside. Gaston started fixing the car by removing all tires, when there was a scream inside. We looked inside the car, and found Spirou missing. Just the puppet was there, sitting where he had been, it's wooden mouth splattered with blood._

 

_We called out but got no answer from Spirou. We split up and went looking for him. Suddenly I heard a voice calling my name. I turned and came face to face with Spirou. Except he was now pale as a sheet, had eyes as red as his uniform, and dagger-like fangs. He grinned._

 

_"Prunelle. Come closer. I want to taste your blood."_

 

Prunelle stopped writing. This was starting to get unrealistic. So he added:

 

_Of course his vampire teeth made him slur his speech so it sounded more like "Fhrunevve. Cov closher. I hwant to tashfte your fblood."_

 

There, a touch of realism.

 

_He reached his ice cold hand to me and grabbed my arm. I struggled free and ran. However, I didn't get far, I soon stumbled in the dark forest, and fell down. The vampire caught up with me._

_He pushed me to the ground and prepared to suck my blood, when a burnt omelet was thrown at him. The vampire screamed as Gaston's cooking burned his flesh. The office boy had sneaked to the vampire and attacked him by throwing the remains of his lunch at him._

 

Prunelle decided he was making Gaston a tad too heroic.

 

_The vampire pointed at the tree. "There is a cat trapped there!"_

 

_"Oh no!" Gaston yelled and ran away. "Don't worry kitty! I'm coming to save you!"_

 

_I took the chance to run and hid away._

 

He was almost at the deadline, no time to flesh this out. So, better just wrap this up and let the poor bastard who'd end up illustrating this do most of the work.

 

_That's when Fantasio appeared. "This is a vampire spirit that came from the doll to possess Spirou! I know this because I hang out with lot of weird people. Mushrooms are probably involved in this somehow!"_

 

_"Fantasio!" I screamed. "Do you know how we can get him back to normal?"_

 

_Fantasio took out a sword._

 

Yeah, a sword duel. Why not, those were always cool.

 

_"I'll deal with this! You go and destroy the doll!"_

 

_I ran back to the car. I turned back to see the vampire summoning a horde of bats to attack Fantasio. Fantasio cut them all down with a sword._

 

Just in case Gaston would read this Prunelle added:

 

_"Don't worry, these bats are not real. They're made of mushrooms."_

 

_A spectacular fight scene ensued._

 

_I ran to the car, and found the doll standing there, walking slowly, looking like a zombie. I luckily has experience with creepy human sized dolls, and jumped it, hitting it with a branch I had picked up from the ground._

 

_The doll fell down, hitting a nearby rock, and broke._

 

_"Fantasio? Are you okay?"_

 

_I ran back to where they had been fighting, and saw unconscious Spirou cradled by Fantasio._

 

_"Is he-?" I asked, worried._

 

_Fantasio turned to look at me. "He is fine. Unconscious, but fine._

 

Jef opened the door to Prunelle's office. "Prunelle? They really need that story, and they need that now."

 

"I'm almost done!"

 

_Spirou opened his once again blue eyes and smiled at Fantasio."Fanta!"_

_His smile disappeared. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"_

 

_"No, you'd never hurt me," Fantasio reassured him._

 

"Prunelle!" Jef called.

 

"Almost done!"

 

_And then we got back to office, after retrieving Gaston from the tree._

 

_THE END._

 

He handed the script to Jef. Hopefully Spirou or Fantasio wouldn't read this... Maybe he should take another trip at the time it would come out. Just in case.

 


End file.
